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Better Tools For Disabled Geeks?
layabout writes "We've seen tremendous advances in user interfaces over the past few years. Unfortunately, those UIs and supporting infrastructure exclude the disabled. In the same timeframe there has been virtually no advance in accessibility capabilities. It's the same old sticky keys, unicorn stick, speech recognition, text-to-speech that kind-of, sort-of, works except when you need to work with with real applications. Depending on whose numbers you use, anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 keyboard users are injured every year — some temporarily, some permanently. In time, almost 100% of keyboard users will have trouble typing and using many if not all mobile computing devices. My question to Slashdot: Given that some form of disability is almost inevitable, what's keeping you from volunteering and working with geeks who are already disabled? By spending time now building the interfaces and tools that will enable them to use computers more easily, you will also be ensuring your own ability to use them in the future." Follow the link for more background on this reader's query.
This question is aimed mostly at the kind of disability we are susceptible to and I have been living with for the past 15 years. Even though we have speech recognition, it doesn't solve any problem except writing text. There have been a couple of attempts at making speech recognition more useful to programmers [0], but they have failed. The needs are clear:
[1] A working full-vocabulary, continuous recognition system on Linux.
[2] Tools that don't expect you to "speak the keyboard."
[3] Tools that let you edit as well as create code.
So why don't more geeks work on securing their own future, or at the very least, work to help their fellow geeks to stay on the economic ladder?
[0] VoiceCode and VR-Mode: VoiceCode or is an amazing piece of work. It makes it possible for a disabled programmer to generate Python code very quickly. Unfortunately, it does not solve the editing problem. Even more unfortunately, it's hand-wearingly complicated to set up and get working. VR-Mode makes it possible to use Naturally Speaking's "Select and Say" mode in Emacs — that is, if you can get it to work. It seems to have drifted into non-functionality as Emacs has moved forward.
[1] Naturally Speaking works well, is reasonably cheap, and works somewhat under Wine today. If we can make it work reliably under Wine, it solves the problem in months rather than decades. Other tools such as Sphinx 1-4 are great IVR systems if you have a vocabulary and grammar under 15,000 words. In contrast, Naturally Speaking's working vocabulary is in the 100,000-word range. Any disabled user will choose Naturally Speaking because it works so much better than the nearest alternative. We have people who are injured now and need these tools. They can't afford to wait 10 years or more for an OSS solution.
[2] "Speaking the keyboard" refers to speech user interfaces developed by people who don't use speech recognition. They expect you to say too much, which creates a vocal form of RSI — see [3]. Listen to what disabled users do, not to what you think they should speak.
[3] See VoiceCode in [0]. Unfortunately, today's tools are only for writing code, not correcting code. Code correction is a very different process and must be spoken in a different way: "change index" instead of "search forward left bracket leave mark search forward right bracket copy region." This is also an example of "speaking the keyboard."
This question is aimed mostly at the kind of disability we are susceptible to and I have been living with for the past 15 years. Even though we have speech recognition, it doesn't solve any problem except writing text. There have been a couple of attempts at making speech recognition more useful to programmers [0], but they have failed. The needs are clear:
[1] A working full-vocabulary, continuous recognition system on Linux.
[2] Tools that don't expect you to "speak the keyboard."
[3] Tools that let you edit as well as create code.
So why don't more geeks work on securing their own future, or at the very least, work to help their fellow geeks to stay on the economic ladder?
[0] VoiceCode and VR-Mode: VoiceCode or is an amazing piece of work. It makes it possible for a disabled programmer to generate Python code very quickly. Unfortunately, it does not solve the editing problem. Even more unfortunately, it's hand-wearingly complicated to set up and get working. VR-Mode makes it possible to use Naturally Speaking's "Select and Say" mode in Emacs — that is, if you can get it to work. It seems to have drifted into non-functionality as Emacs has moved forward.
[1] Naturally Speaking works well, is reasonably cheap, and works somewhat under Wine today. If we can make it work reliably under Wine, it solves the problem in months rather than decades. Other tools such as Sphinx 1-4 are great IVR systems if you have a vocabulary and grammar under 15,000 words. In contrast, Naturally Speaking's working vocabulary is in the 100,000-word range. Any disabled user will choose Naturally Speaking because it works so much better than the nearest alternative. We have people who are injured now and need these tools. They can't afford to wait 10 years or more for an OSS solution.
[2] "Speaking the keyboard" refers to speech user interfaces developed by people who don't use speech recognition. They expect you to say too much, which creates a vocal form of RSI — see [3]. Listen to what disabled users do, not to what you think they should speak.
[3] See VoiceCode in [0]. Unfortunately, today's tools are only for writing code, not correcting code. Code correction is a very different process and must be spoken in a different way: "change index" instead of "search forward left bracket leave mark search forward right bracket copy region." This is also an example of "speaking the keyboard."
Dasher is a great text-input interface: mouse driven, and you don't even have to click (very often). Not as fast as a keyboard, but still respectable.
Heck, I wish it worked for my N800, and I don't even have any disabilities.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
Text to speech in Linux actually works pretty well according to the people I've talked to who use it, in some cases better than the windows options. (GTK integration is pretty complete to my understanding). Some complaints of stuttering though. Ubuntu, and probably others, even have text to speech available in the installer.
The big problem is that the kernel likes to randomly drop one the text to speech modules thats needed for geeks who want to hear the start up messages.
Braille readers are a much bigger problem than the text to speech in Linux, the old serial port ones work fine, but expansion serial ports don't work right for it, and those are getting hard to find. Very few USB braille readers have Linux drivers. (Which i don't get, braille readers + a command line interface seem such a good match).
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Repetitive+strain+injuries+stretch+higher-a018341055 when you work through the reports, the 300k number works out to about 100k for IT. while this report is old, nothing has changed to drop the rate. uk reports are more current http://download.microsoft.com/documents/uk/hardwar/Ergonomics_and_Repetitive_Strain_Injury.pdf As for the near 100%, think arthritis, medication induced tremors, loss of flexibility as you age normally or via trauma. It all adds up to loss of hand function.
http://download.microsoft.com/documents/uk/hardware/Ergonomics_and_Repetitive_Strain_Injury.pdf http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Repetitive+strain+injuries+stretch+higher-a018341055 http://www.rsi-therapy.com/statistics.htm I think the UK stats are probably the best stats to go by. Most of the RSI injury rate information in the United States is based on the last clean census of injuries which was roughly 1994-1995. Unfortunately, since that time states with a large chicken processing workforce, have either stopped counting RSI statistics or have merge them into some other heading making difficult if not impossible to track down what the actual injury rates are. It's amazing the kind of government service you can purchase if your name is Tyson or Perdue. I know this sounds kind of conspiratorial but, up here in New England, the same thing happened with glass cutters and textile workers. Remember, programmers are nothing more than a clean form of blue-collar labor that can be replaced by cheaper labor in a heartbeat. As for the near 100% comment, well as we age, we lose ability. Since everybody ages, is a good chance you will spend decades being unable to use the tools and toys you use today. There's a better chance that the twentysomethings 30 years from now will be inventing all of these cool things that you will be excluded from.
I've worked a Data Entry job in the UK (for a year and half) where I was staring at a screen and typing continuously at 10,000+ kph and we were required to log out and have a 10 minute eye break after every 60 minutes of work. Actually, the rules said that we just had to have a break from the keyboard/screen and could carry out other tasks but we were in a dedicated data entry centre so there was no other tasks available and it was a general break.
It could be that your work doesn't involve intensive keyboard activity actually requiring a separate break (eg programming work can involve 'thinking' while you look at the plants) but if your OHSA training says you should have a break from the keyboard/screen then you really should. Just do something else and if they don't have anything else for you to do then take a piss. Even in the USA can they fire you for doing what you are told? I can't see that you would be required to damage yourself for a daily wage..
Assuming that you're talking about the U.S., Social Security Disability a) only covers you if you can't do any other form of work (so if you can't type, but can hold a chainsaw, have fun being a lumberjack), b) benefits are based on your current salary, so you have no chance to improve your situation, and c) are also a lot lower than your actual salary. According to my last Social Security statement, my disability benefit would be around 40% of my salary, which I could live on if I had to (I did right out of college), but not well, and certainly not where I'm living now, which is nothing at all like retirement.
Ten bucks seems really cheap for something that could significantly increase your productivity.
If you are a professional programmer, I imagine an item like that would pay for itself within a week at ten bucks, if it could even be made for that selling price.
But if it takes $300 to sell them, it would still pay for itself in a lot less than one year. A decent office chair costs more than that.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
There are many people working on input methods for the disabled. As just one example, Dasher is an information efficient text-entry method that can be controlled by mouse, voice, gaze, two buttons or even a single button. Experienced users regularly type 20+ words per minute, just with their gaze. Try that with an on-screen keyboard.
The same group has just published nomon, a single-button text entry method (and pointing device) for the severely disabled. Did I mention that both programs are open source?